Georgian chant
Georgian chant is the music sung in the Georgian Orthodox Church for daily and weekly services. It is sung in three-voiced polyphony without instrumental accompaniment. There are many musical styles and performance practices, and a long history of transmission and musical development. It has been sung since at least 326 AD, when Saint Nino, Enlightener of Georgians, converted King Mirian and Queen Nana of Iberia, a Georgian speaking kingdom in the South Caucasus region.
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Recent Posts
Kviria – Svan Ritual Chant
One of the most important and historically layered Svan ritual songs is the hymn Kviria. Like many hymns passed down orally over the centuries, Kviria exists in multiple variants. However, some of... Read More
Svanetian Chant: Introduction
Svaneti’s culture is famed in Georgia for being archaic and harsh, with Upper Svaneti often described as a “living museum” that offers insights into the worldview and customs of ancient Georgia.... Read More
Ts’utisopeli Project: A Soundscape of Eastern Georgia
I can’t remember when I first heard ts’utisopeli spoken, though it impressed me that so much could be communicated in a single word. Translated literally, ts’utisopeli means “minute village.” The expression, a... Read More
One Old Georgian Musical Term (Mortuleba)
Of the musical terms attested in Medieval Georgian written sources, special attention attaches to the term mortuleba (“harmony”). It is polysemantic and occurs in various branches of Georgian literature (theological... Read More
The Georgian Modal System
1. INTRODUCTION The present paper discusses selected results from my dissertation work on “The History of Georgian Chant Notation and the Georgian Musical System” (Erkvanidze, 2014). One of the main challenges in the... Read More
Trisagion Hymn – East Syriac and Georgian connections
Part III: East Syriac and Georgian Connections Part I: Chanting Around the Throne of God (Theological and Ritual Perspectives) Part II: Musical Analysis of the Georgian Trisagion Hymn We now return... Read More
Computational Ethnomusicology – Recordings of Artem Erkomaishvili
By way of some background, my involvement with the study of Georgian music started with a chance meeting with Meinard Müller, Professor for Semantic Audio at the University of Erlangen, at the... Read More
Trisagion Hymn – Musical Analysis
Part II: Musical Analysis of the Georgian Trisagion Hymn Part I: Chanting Around the Throne of God (Theological and Ritual Perspectives) Part III: Trisagian Hymn – East Syrian and Georgian Connections ... Read More